Dickens wrote "The law is a ass." (If you thought Shakespeare penned those words, check on Google.) There are many collections of stupid, dumb and ridiculous laws proving the truth of the statement. But one of the dumbest laws Walt has heard about in some time is a provision of the Regulated Health Professions Act of Ontario that makes it illegal for dentists to have sex with their spouses.
Well, putting it another way, dentists who have sex with their spouses better not be drilling and filling their teeth. That's because the Act says that health professionals cannot have sex with their patients. So a "health professional" can have a spouse or a patient, but not a spouse for a patient.
So said the Ontario Court of Appeal last year, ruling on a case involving a chiropractor who had treated his girlfriend. The chiropractor was found guilty of professional misconduct for sexual abuse and lost his licence. Since dentists are covered by the same act, they run the same risk.
One Ontario tooth mechanic calling for change is Dr. Larry Pedlar, who, for half a century, counted his wife among his patients. Oral Health quotes the good doctor as saying, "If I treat my wife, it means I am sexually abusing her. It means I would be an outlaw."
Still, half the dentists he knows continue to treat their spouses, says the 72-year-old Dr. Pedlar. "They just keep their mouths shut." Unlike their spouses, presumably.
The issue has become a topic of ridicule in dental circles, and rightly so, says Walt. Ontario's Minister of Health has promised to, errr, look into the problem. Open just a little bit wider...
No comments:
Post a Comment